The surf rock classic Bob Dylan calls a “minor masterpiece”
For all their revolutionary reputations, many early rock ‘n’ roll scenes seem pretty twee and safe in hindsight. While Elvis’ swinging hips might have outraged parents in the 1950s, images of clean-cut young men like Buddy Holly paled in comparison to the safety pins and sleaze of the punk era that would come decades later. Inevitably, there was a transition period between these two disparate eras of rock, which managed to capture the attention of a young Bob Dylan.
The first hints at this harsher side of rock came with the advent of surf and garage rock. Far away from the glitz and glamour of The Ed Sullivan Show, where early rock stars would be beamed into living rooms across the United States, countless young people were forming their own DIY bands. These groups were characterised by rough-and-ready, adrenaline-fuelled rock, with the likes of The Kingsmen and The Seeds rising to the top of the pile.
Meanwhile, Bob Dylan was in the early days of his own revolutionary music career, though he was more concerned with the tranquil stylings of folk music. The singer-songwriter’s career would ultimately kick off once he moved to New York in the 1960s. Prior to that period, however, Dylan had gone to Minneapolis to study, during which time he was exposed to a variety of innovative young DIY rock groups.
“In Minneapolis, they played northwest rock and roll,” Dylan once explained to Bill Flanagan, “Dick Dale and the Ventures, The Kingsmen played there a lot, The Easy Beats, The Castaways, all surf bands, high voltage groups.” Surf rock and garage were, in many ways, two sides of the same coin. Though the polished sounds of The Beach Boys would soon become the definitive sound of surf, there was certainly no shortage of rough and ready garage rock bands populating the same sound years prior.
One of the defining moments in the early surf rock and garage scene came in 1963, with the release of The Trashmen’s ‘Surfin’ Bird’. The simplistic and infectious tune transcended the garage rock scene, reaching number four in the US singles chart and rocketing this underground scene into the mainstream consciousness.
Although, by this point, Dylan had moved on from Minneapolis in order to follow in the footsteps of Woody Guthrie, he maintained an appreciation for the DIY scene he was exposed to at university. He recalled how the entirety of the scene at the time was “cranked up to ten with a lot of reverb; tremolo switches, everything Fender – Esquires, Broadcasters, Jaguars, amps on folding chairs – the chairs even looked Fender”.
As such, the folk hero affirms that The Trashmen’s hit single was something of an inevitability, saying, “‘Surfin’ Bird’ came out of there a little while later. It didn’t surprise me.” Nevertheless, it seems as though Dylan had a certain amount of love for the track, even labelling it a “minor masterpiece” during a 2012 interview. Admittedly, Dylan’s own music never really strayed into surf or garage rock, but the rebellious ethos of the DIY rock scene undoubtedly influenced the songwriter, if only in terms of attitude.
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